Thinking about Beauty

Regularity [of features] without some metaphysical value behind it, some beauty of soul or character, was more disappointing—and indeed repulsive—than the honestly haphazard, the humanly messy. It was more disappointing because it promised something that was not there: it should engage the soul, but it did not. It was shallow and meretricious. So Mother Teresa of Calcutta, with her weepy eyes and her lined face, was infinitely more beautiful than…the current icons of feminine beauty?...Of course Mother Teresa was more beautiful—infinitely so. Only a culture with a thoroughly upside-down sense of values could think otherwise.
--Alexander McCall Smith, 44 Scotland Street

http://www.mccallsmith.com/